Clinvue News.

Insight informed medical innovation.

Clinvue partners with Johns Hopkins for USAID Ebola Challenge

Every day, in Ebola-affected countries, healthcare workers perform critical tasks that save lives and prevent the spread of the virus. Personal protective equipment (PPE) offers critical protection, but is a source of stress and discomfort, limiting wear-time to no more than 40-minutes and impacting the amount of care that can be provided for patients. In addition to this, lengthy infection control measures and complicated instructions leave no room for error, putting workers at risk.

USAID, in collaboration with the White House Office of Science and Technology, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Department of Defense, has launched an innovation initiative, engaging the global community to identify ingenious ideas that deliver practical, cost-effective, and scalable solutions to these problems in a matter of months.

In response to this challenge, Clinvue is partnering with Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Bioengineering Innovation & Design (CBID) and JHPIEGO to conduct a weekend design challenge to improve personal protective equipment (PPE) used by frontline workers when providing care to victims of Ebola.

“The faculty and students at Johns Hopkins Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design are delighted to continue our exciting relationship with Clinvue; applying innovation best-practice to this vital task”, commented Soumyadipta Acharya, Graduate Program Director of CBID.

Kickoff for the event will commence Friday October 24th, featuring experts from around the world describing current conditions and the challenges they face. Throughout the weekend, cross-disciplinary teams will collaborate to analyze the problem and move quickly to create, prototype, and refine solutions. Highly ranked concepts will advance to a second stage for further development prior to being presented to USAID for consideration.